basic cues and training every bird should have

[mulatte27]

What would you all say are some basic things any bird should understand... whether they be for safety or just general ease of interaction? Say for instance you are taking your bird to the vet or have company over... or just things to help build a rapport with your avian friend... what are some fundamental basics... and what in your experience has been the best way to train


Oh and this is in reference to a male sun conure... almost 2 years old

[Wolf]

To begin with you hope that the sun conure has already gone through puberty. If you are to have a successful relationship with your bird you never push or crowd or force any issue with them, you must always respect the bird and let it set the pace. You must gain the birds trust, because without this trust you will never be able to do anything with the bird and both of you will be unhappy. With a parrot, regardless of what species you must exercise patience, patience and still more patience and then when you have reached the end of that you must add another ton of patience and mix that all up in another equal amount of patience and then add another ton of patience and then double that. That should be enough to get you started on a good relationship.
To take your bird to the vet you should have a transport cage and you simply teach your bird to go in this cage as well as into its regular cage.
the best way to accomplish this is through the use of bribery. You place food and water in the travel cage and let the bird go inside it to eat and drink. You should remove its regular cage from the room while you do this or use another room as the bird will attempt to go to its normal cage if it can get to it.
If I have people over, I tell them that I have birds and to please not bother them. If the birds are in their cage it is ok to look but don't touch the cage. If I have the birds out then just ignore them unless the bird comes over to them. If the bird comes over to them to remain calm and move slowly so as to not scare them. I will then help them through petting the bird if that is what the bird wants or I will remove the bird depending on the circumstances.
As to training the bird you must figure out how to make it visual for the bird as it doesn't understand our speech always you will generally have to show it what you want it to do and in many cases you must give it something that it wants in return for it cooperation. Here again you must allow the bird to set the pace as well as allowing it to say no. You can always come back to what you want it to do, sometimes in just a few minutes and ask again. Patience is your key in this process. Depending on what you want it will take a lot of repetition and more patience, sometimes for months before you make any progress.
The best way to build rapport with your bird is to spend a lot of time with it both one on one time as well as just time hanging out together and talking.

[Pajarita]

The basics are: step up (to go on a hand or finger), step down (to go from the finger or hand to a perch), come (for the bird to fly to you), go (for the bird to fly away from you) and go home (for the bird to go into his cage).

[Harpmaker]

Would you add the towel game? All the vets use towels.

[Wolf]

Yes, by all means. Pajarita has given us an excellent towel game for our birds. It is well worth the effort to use it.

[mulatte27]

HAHAHA wolf you are just stalking me with the word patience!

thank you for letting me know what are the key cues to work on... I definitely won't be starting the training immediately, but one thing I have learned is that when it comes to training animals its as much about training the owners... so I want as much info to set both he and I up for as much success as possible when the time comes...

and does anyone want to explain the towel game? or is it an inside joke? lol

[Wolf]

Actually, I am not. You can find several instances of my stressing patience in a very similar fashion to other people on this and other forums. In my opinion it is the single most important aspect of good bird keeping as it will keep the bond strong when all else fails you. I do however try to inject a little humor into my replies at times, which accounts for my delivery of the patience recipe.
As to the towel game go down the page in this category and look for a post entitled Toweling without Stress and read it.